Angry Puppy

It reportedly made Simon Pegg cry, but most of us still haven’t seen the trailer for J.J. Abrams’ upcoming foray into the Star Trek franchise. You know sci fans, though: already we’re lining up on one side or the other based solely on some recently released photos.

“The bridge looks like an Apple store, but at least they kept the Beatle boots and miniskirts!” vs. “I love the new bridge! They should’ve updated those sexist miniskirts!”

“Why is everyone so young and glossy?” vs. “Wow, the cast is hunkarrificly perfect!”

“How come Zachary Quinto still looks like Sylar?” vs. “Quinto was born to play Spock!”

I think we’ll have to wait to really evaluate (or ignore) those points, but one thing keeps jumping out at me. Maybe it’s just the particular blogs I read, but several times I’ve noticed the term “homoerotic” used to describe these new pictures, particularly the EW cover of Spock and Kirk. According to io9, it’s “it’s unthinkingly homoerotic”. And have a look at many of the comments on this post at /Film:

“Sweet Jesus those dudes are still standing WAY too close together. Who in the world would want to see this movie now? Fetishists?”

“Kiss now please !”

I just don’t see it, and I’ve come up with three explanations:

1. My threshold for “homoerotic” is much higher than the general public’s due to years of gayness and homosexualism.

2. This stuff is being written by straight people who wouldn’t know homoerotic if it was dancing in front of them naked in a Laura Bush mask.

3. This stuff is being written by gay people who are injecting their own slashfic wishful thinking into the picture.

We’ll be bringing it up in episode 38, but I’d love to get your thoughts before then. Do you all see anything particularly homoerotic in these pics?